How important is a good backup quarterback?

Backup quarterback Beau Allen has played in only three games and UK and thrown just 14 passes. (UK Athletics Photo)

Here’s an interesting fact that you won’t see every day. In 2020 Americans paid $1.28 trillion dollars for insurance. About half of that was to protect against property/casualty losses and the other half was for life/annuity policies. That’s a lot of cash to pay for something that may not happen.

And it’s funny, people insure all kinds of weird things. Insuring body parts seems to be a big business for Loyd’s of London. They have insured, get this, soccer player David Beckham’s legs for $195 million, Mariah Carey’s legs for a whopping $1 billion dollars and former singer/sex symbol Tom Jones’s chest hair for $7 million. They’ve also insured former NFL player Troy Polamalu’s hair and ZZ Top guitarist/singer Billy Gibbon’s beard.

Other insurance companies provide policies to pay off if you are abducted by aliens, killed or injured by a ghost, or even get jilted at the wedding altar.

I’m sure many of you are saying why so much discussion about insurance and what does it have to do with UK Sports? I’m glad you asked.

Insurance is very important to Mark Stoops and the UK football team. Here’s what I mean. After Kentucky’s win over ULM on Saturday, it has become very apparent that quarterback Will Levis is a critical piece of the team if UK is to reach its ultimate goal of competing for an SEC East Championship and a berth in the SEC Championship game. Knowing that, Mark Stoops and Liam Coen need to purchase an insurance policy. And how do they do that?

That’s a great question. The answer is, get more reps for Beau Allen. Seems simple in concept but not easy to do. Since Levis played sparingly in his career at Penn State, he needs all the reps he can get in practice and games to improve his overall play. If UK football is to achieve its goals for this season, Levis needs to continue to improve his overall passing game, including his timing and accuracy on short throws. That’s difficult to do and still get minutes for your backup quarterback.

But, as an insurance policy, it’s critical that Allen gets some series in several games going forward. Allen has played in only three games during his college career, always in mop up duty, and has only thrown 14 passes. That became very evident in his first series Saturday when he was sacked by the ULM defense, fumbled the ball and ULM recovered.

Now I know some of you are saying let’s not start a quarterback controversy after the first game of the season, and I agree 100 percent. There is no controversy. Will Levis is the quarterback, period. But for those that don’t think it’s necessary to have a good insurance policy, let’s take a little stroll down memory lane

Back in 2009, Mike Hartline was the starting Kentucky quarterback. Coming off a 2008 season where he led UK to a victory in the Liberty Bowl over East Carolina he played only five games in 2009 before suffering a season-ending knee injury. And that’s not a fluke.

In 2011-2012 Maxwell Smith was the UK quarterback and suffered several shoulder injuries and finally an ankle injury that ended his season in 2012 after five games. That injury, along with an injury to backup Morgan Newton, caused UK to use wide receiver Matt Roark at quarterback against Tennessee and enabled the Cats to beat the Volunteers 10-7 and break the “streak.”

The list of injured quarterbacks goes on. Don’t forget Drew Barker and his career-ending back injury or Terry Wilson’s torn patellar tendon that ended his season or Sawyer Smith suffering injuries to his wrist and shoulder that caused Lynn Bowden to step in and take over the 2019 season.

It’s very evident that the game of college football is dangerous for quarterbacks. Injuries happen. It’s a violent sport and people get hurt.

That’s why an insurance policy is so critical for this Kentucky team. That’s why it’s important to get additional playing time for Beau Allen so that if something happens to Will Levis (fingers crossed that it won’t), whether it’s for a play or two, a whole series or an entire game, Beau Allen is comfortable enough to go in the game and continue to run the offense at a high level.

Unfortunately, there is no easy way to create that situation. UK must win games and, right now, it looks like Will Levis needs to be in the game to make that happen.

So all controversy aside, somehow, someway, Liam Coen needs to figure out how to get Beau Allen some additional playing time and still win games. That won’t be easy with a schedule that includes Missouri, South Carolina, Florida, LSU, and Georgia in the first seven games.

Even knowing that, to be successful this season the coaches have to have quality, experienced depth at every position, including quarterback.

So as we think about the UK quarterback situation “like a good neighbor” hopefully Liam Coen can only “pay for what you need” so that the Kentucky football team can “be in good hands.”  Sorry, but I had to do it.